Too Young

Draco watched Potter from the shadows as he sat paging through a book on a bench in the center of the courtyard. In a few minutes, dinner would be starting and he was surprised to stumble upon Potter out here by himself. The sun was setting and soon darkness would fall.


He had lost many things this year. It was only the second of September and it was already obvious that he was no longer the Prince of Slytherin. His father had seen to that.


“You won’t get anymore help or support out of me Draco. You’ve proven yourself worthless time and again.” His father had said. Refusing the mark was one thing, but being the gay, only son in a family like the Malfoys was unforgivable. If he had been a second or third son, then maybe it wouldn’t have been a problem. Perhaps one day his father would be able to forgive him if he were able to “buck up”, “be a man”, and give him a legitimate heir. Draco knew that wouldn’t happen.


He was on his own now, no Malfoy money, and no Malfoy pride. Without the money and family support, he was nothing in Slytherin. It seems that the only thing towing the family party line had gotten him was alone. If he had been himself here at school, he might actually have a real friend or two that he could fall back on.


Oh, he had Pansy, in secret he supposed. She told him that she couldn’t afford to be seen with him in public. Lucius had made it clear that he would not compensate her family for the broken contract should she associate with his son. Therefore, she had to stay away. Of course should Draco need her in any way that didn’t involve talking in public or actually providing support, then she was there for him.


He wished that somehow he had managed to befriend Potter when they had first met. He wished that he had gotten there before Weasley, or that he had been a better person and had been able to let the insult to his name pass by. If he had let that insult go then maybe, Potter would have picked him instead of Weasley.


Draco slowly walked over to where he was sitting alone on the bench, book laid out beside him, quietly flipping pages. He sat softly beside the raven-haired boy.


“What are you looking at Potter?” It looked like a scrapbook of sorts he thought. He fully expected Potter to tell him to get lost. Instead, he replied.


“A very special girl.” Ah, so it was a scrapbook, he thought. Somewhat disappointed that Potter was out here moping over a girl. He couldn’t be lucky enough for him to be out here moping over a boy could he? No, because lately Draco had no luck.


He was getting ready to ask the Gryffindor seeker another question, perhaps the name of the girl, or to see her picture, when all rational thought fled. He heard a tiny cry of, “Daddy”


Harry Potters’ head flew up and looked in the direction of the cry. Okay, this was interesting. Again the cry came, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” The child was running toward them. She was beautiful. A tiny little girl with Malfoy-Blond hair was running at the pair and Draco was relatively sure that she wasn’t running at him. He was almost positive that he had known at her age that he was gay. So there were no hidden affairs he had to worry about. Besides that he was sixteen years old. He would have had to have been a baby himself to have a child this age.


Just as he had that thought this beautiful, little blonde child ran into Harry Potters waiting arms. While Draco was musing about the affairs he hadn’t had, Potter had slid off the bench onto one knee and scooped her up in his arms.


The child started crying almost immediately. “Daddy, I want Mama,” she sobbed.


“I know Princess. I know you want Mama. You’re going to live with Daddy now though, isn’t that great?” Harry was hoping that distraction might work; his daughter was breaking his heart. If he didn’t have a reason to want Voldemort dead before, he did now. It wasn’t enough to kill his parents, he had to kill Sarah too.


“Daddy why can’t I wiv wif Mama?” She asked.


“Princess, do you remember what happened today?” He asked her, hoping that she forgot it all and he could make up some pretty lie, so that he wouldn’t have to break her heart anymore than it already was.


“I ‘member Daddy. The bad man came.” It was a small sentence, but it summed it all up rather nicely.


“Do you remember what the bad man did?” Please don’t let her remember he thought to himself.


“I did what I was ‘posed to Daddy, I hid in da cwoset. The bad man told the man wike Papa that he was gettin’ a punsment” Her speech was amazing for her age, but she still had trouble with lots of words, punishment was one of them. It was probably because she didn’t like that word very much.


“The man that looked like Papa, was his name Lucius?” Harry asked.


“Yes! The bad man fwashed the gween wight fwee times, at Papa, Mamére and Mama.” The green light. It was exactly what Harry was afraid of. She remembered everything.


“Sweetheart, the green light makes it so that Mama can never wake up again.” Hearing her Daddy say this, she started to cry. Harry just held her to him; tears rolling down his face as he felt the full weight of his daughter’s pain. A shadow moved over him and he looked up to see Draco Malfoy still sitting beside them, tears rolling down his cheeks as well. He can’t have missed his fathers name in that conversation.


Seeing that Potter was looking at him, he wiped his face, ashamed that he had been crying for the little girl’s loss. He had recently lost his own mother. Oh, not to death but to rejection.


Potter looked at him for a few minutes before he turned back to his daughter.


“Honey,” He coddled. “Sweetheart, I want you to meet someone.” The little girl rubbed her face on her Daddy’s robes and twisted her face to look up at him. She had the most startling green eyes. Harry liked to think of them as his mother’s eyes. All over the world people commented on Harry Potters’ green eyes. However, to those that knew him well, to those that knew his family they would always be Lily Evans’ green eyes.


Harry stood and inclined his head in Draco’s direction. “Olivia, do you remember when I told you the story about Mama’s family, and I told you that you had a cousin named after a dragon?” Draco’s eyes widened when he heard Potter.


The little girl nodded her head in the affirmative. “Well he goes to school with me here; do you see him there on that bench?” Again she nodded.


Harry sat down beside Draco now. “Draco, I want you to meet my daughter, your cousin, Olivia Potter. Livvie, this is your cousin Draco Malfoy.” Draco made eye contact with Potter for a moment, confirming that it was in fact true and mouthing ‘later’.


The little girl, however, was twisting in thought. “Dawaco, Dwaayco” she just couldn’t get her mouth around that word. “Coco!” She cried with glee.


Draco Malfoy looked horrified. Harry Potter laughed. Olivia Potter had a reputation on Privet Drive for giving nicknames to people she cared about. It didn’t matter if they actually cared about her. Aunt Petunia for example had earned the nickname Aunt Tuna, much to Harry’s glee. Of course, Aunt Tuna would never say anything against Harry’s daughter. If there was one thing that the Dursleys had learned, it was that Harry would defend her with his life and he didn’t need magic to make them feel afraid.


Sometimes Harry thought that she had thought of distasteful nicknames for them just because she knew they didn’t like her Daddy. After all, she did call Dudley, Dud Dud. She didn’t ever see Uncle Vernon, Harry refused to have her at number four if he was there, however when talking about him, she called him Uncle Vewrmin. The way he figured, Draco Malfoy had gotten off easily.


“Hello Olivia, you can call me Draco.” He tried. It was all Harry could do not to laugh at the futility of that gesture.


She reached over and grabbed his robes forcing him to take over holding her and emphatically said “You’wre Coco!!”


Draco looked back at Harry and raised an eyebrow. “Malfoy, you’re very lucky. It could have been much worse. Olivia has a penchant for nicknames. She calls my Uncle Vernon, Vermin.”


Draco nodded his head agreeing that he supposed it could have been worse.


“So Coco, why don’t we go and get my Princess here some dinner?” Harry asked. He was taking his life into his own hands calling Draco ‘Coco’, but he thought it fit.


“Coco?” Draco questioned.


“Of course Coco, I figure it’s your family nickname.” As if to make it more real Olivia placed her tiny little hands around his neck in an attempt at a hug. He hugged her back, stunned speechless wondering what God or Goddess had been listening tonight.


“So, Potter, Harry, are you going to explain to me how exactly we’re family?” He asked with another raised eyebrow.


“Come see us tomorrow. I’ll tell you the whole story. For now though, Livvie has had a long and terrible day. I’ve got to get her fed and put to bed, once I find out where we’re living.” He started walking toward the Great Hall. Draco followed carrying Olivia.


When they got to the Great Hall doors Harry thanked Draco and took Olivia back into his arms, he placed her back on the floor and gave her the once over. Braids were neat and tidy; dress was still looking fairly neat and tidy. He took her hand and led her through the doors and straight over to the Gryffindor table.


Harry sat down in his usual seat between Ron and Seamus and across from Hermione. He swung Olivia up in his lap and ignored the stares and whispers that were running rampant through the hall. His friends all stared at the two of them.


“Okay sweetie, what would you like? How about some potatoes and chicken? You like chicken and then if you do a good job you can have some applesauce for dessert, how does that sound?” Olivia was nervous in the crowded room, so she just buried her baby face into her Daddy’s robes and nodded up and down.


Harry carefully put some potatoes and chicken on his plate, careful to grab a bowl of applesauce and place it in front of them in the middle of the table where Olivia could see it.


“All right Princess, here is a spoon; I’ll use this fork okay?” They shared their meal quietly both eating from the plate in front of Harry. Olivia was doing a fine job with the potatoes; after all, they were sticky. However, the chicken just didn’t seem to want to stay on her spoon. Occasionally Harry would simply pluck one off his fork and pop it into her mouth.


“Harry?” Hermione finally broke the silence. Harry knew she would be the first one to ask. It was time for introductions. He had dreaded this moment since they had decided to hide Olivia’s existence when Sarah was only two months pregnant.


“Hermione?” Harry didn’t know how to go about introducing his daughter to his best friends. Ron would take it as a betrayal and Hermione would rail about responsibility.


“Would you like to introduce us?” She prompted him again. How to introduce them? That would be a tough one. He had always wanted his daughter to know them, to know those whom he considered his real family. It was one of his biggest regrets in life that he would never get to introduce her to the man he considered a father. He still had Remus, and he would be meeting her very soon. Professor Dumbledore was supposed to ask him to come to the castle next week. Olivia needed time to settle in; however, he knew that a letter needed to be written tonight or else there would be hell to pay.


“Yes I would, Princess?” He looked down at his daughter and smiled. She had a mouth full of mashed potatoes and her spoon was already going back for more. “Do you remember some of the stories Daddy told you about school?” There were multiple gasps at the word Daddy.


Olivia just nodded her head up and down her cheeks puffing with mashed potatoes, knowing better than to talk with her mouth full. “Well, some of the people from those stories are here. Look, there’s Hermione, and next to me right here is Ron.” Olivia’s eyes just widened as she looked back and forth between the two teens that she had heard about for her whole life.


“Ron, Hermione, this is my daughter, Olivia Potter.” Ron and Hermione just sat there slack jawed. Neither knew what to say. This was huge! How could he keep such a secret from them? Having a daughter was a pretty big deal, something you would normally tell your best friends about.


“Daddy? Can I go say ‘hi’ to Coco?” She asked, not even a word spared for Ron and Hermione. Harry had his suspicions that it had to do with Draco’s resemblance to the family she had lost today.


“Yes sweetie, I’ll walk you over there and you can wait there for me okay?” She nodded again and he walked her over to the Slytherin table while his friends watched on wanting to know who Coco was.


Ron’s face turned red as he watched Harry deposit his daughter onto Draco Malfoy’s lap and turn to come back over to their table. Malfoy knew? He was Coco? And Harry trusted him with his daughter?


He could barely contain himself until Harry got back to the table and Hermione didn’t catch him in time with her kick to the shins.


“Harry why is your daughter with Malfoy?” He yelled.


“Well, they met in the courtyard and I think he cheers her up.” He did not want to go into why that was sitting here in the middle of the great hall, but he knew he wouldn’t get out of it.


“Cheers her up? Draco Malfoy cheers your daughter up and you’re okay with that?” Ron was still sputtering and, if it was any indication of how upset he was, he had stopped eating his dinner.


“Olivia’s mother, and grandparents were killed today, I’m okay with anything that cheers her up.” Harry stated coldly.


Hermione let out a short gasp and Ron just sat there red faced, this time from embarrassment instead of anger. Ginny had moved down to sit next to Hermione when she saw her cover her mouth.


“Harry, why didn’t you tell us about her?” Hermione asked pain evident in her voice.


“Because she wasn’t safe if anyone knew about her, no one knew, only Dumbledore. Sirius never knew and he never met her.” You could hear the despair in his voice as he told them that.


“No one could know. I could never mention her inside Hogwarts. If someone heard, it would only be a matter of time before word got to Voldemort. As it turns out, Voldemort had a reason all his own to kill them and it had nothing to do with me.” He reached up with his hands to run his fingers over his eyes.


He was tired. They pulled him out of Transfiguration this morning and told him about Sarah, William and Selenia. He had found out mere hours ago that his daughter was coming to Hogwarts.


“You have to understand. I couldn’t risk it. One day you would have asked about her, had she said her first word, or about how many teeth she had, or was she walking yet and the wrong person would have heard you. The only precaution that was good enough was not to tell anyone.” It hurt him to see his friends, the struggle between understanding and a sense of betrayal that flashed across their faces.


He watched their faces. Hermione eventually decided to understand. Ron was still hurt and insulted at the thought that he would endanger Harry’s child. Ginny just looked completely confused by the whole situation.


“Ron, if it was your daughter, what would you do to protect her?” He asked. He knew that appealing to his own sense of family was the only way to get through to Ron.


Ron thought for a few moments and then slowly nodded.


Harry sighed and then spoke. “I have to go. I’m sure that Olivia is tired, plus I can see from here that she has had too much chocolate. Dumbledore is taking us to our new rooms. I’ll see you guys tomorrow. I won’t be back in class until Olivia has adjusted a bit. Hermione, can you collect my work for me?”


Hermione only nodded, words were beyond her now. Harry, one of her best friends, had a life she knew nothing about. What else didn’t she know?


**AN Many Thanks to Keikokin for the Beta